NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 FE hot, gamer takes it apart and finds a finger cover

Temperature peaks up to 110C and sudden overheating: these were some of the causes that pushed a user (who told his whole story on Reddit) to open your newly purchased video card, one NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition. “antonyjeweet” he thought it could be a problem linked to the poor application of thermal paste and instead he realized how the reality was quite different.

It was a finger cover that caused this NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition to overheat

Between the memory modules and the cooler he has, in fact, found a rubber finger cover, which obviously wasn’t in the initial plans of the video card engineers. Normally, finger covers are used by factory workers for protect the graphics card from fingerprints in the assembly stages. However, in this case it evidently fell into an unsuspected point of the video card, preventing it from functioning correctly.

After removing the finger cover and proceeding with a new application of the thermal paste, in fact, “antonyjeweet” saw a sharp drop in temperatures, with an average dropping to 86C.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition cards are often subject to replacement of thermal paste, because it is not uncommon for the temperature of their memories to go beyond tolerable limits. If heat is not efficiently transferred to the cooler, the temperatures of the GPU itself will rise, which, in the case of the new 3090, is closer to memory.

“antonyjeweet” he also said he updated NVIDIA on all steps of its operation. He said that, initially, the video card manufacturer refused to grant the guarantee, because the video card was removed. Later, after it became clear that the malfunction was due to a production accident, NVIDIA retraced its steps, and offered to change the video card if the “repaired” specimen continued to give problems.

On the plus side, the story had a happy ending. However, this gross error in the assembly phase could be a symptom of a larger problem, attributable to the shortage of semiconductors we are seeing globally. The factories that produce computer components are working at an ever-increasing pace to be able to recover the lost ground and be able to meet the very high demand for products. In such working conditions, therefore, some oversights may be justifiable …